Metadata for the digital preservation of open data: An identification study

Abstract

Objective. Research that aims to identify useful metadata standards for the preservation and digital availability of open data according to current literature. Method. Is characterized as an exploratory research, in the identification of metadata and bibliographic standards, for the necessary literary foundation on descriptive representation of information, digital preservation and metadata, with the purpose of digitally treating, conserving and making available the open data, from the qualitative approach of data collection. Results. Based on literary research, results on the list of environments such as government websites, research institutes, digital repositories, electronic catalogs and digital libraries that adopt metadata standards that can be used to preserve and make available open data, specifically, Dublin Core, used in environments such as the Brazilian Open Data Portal; Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies, present in repositories such as the Carolina Digital Repository; Metadata Object Description Schema, adopted by systems such as Copac: UK and Irish Research Library Catalog; and Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard, accessed to manage digital objects in libraries and repositories such as the National Digital Library of Portugal. Conclusions. Was concluded that the only metadata standard thought specifically of digital preservation, and that if considered as the recommended for the digital safeguard and availability of open data, is the Preservation Metadata Implementation, from fields like rights, agents and events, while that the other schemas identified, even if created for other purposes, also allow the preservation of data, such as the Dublin Core, in the use of the source, relation, coverage and rigths elements, of the Metadata Object Description Schema, when adopting the location and recordInfo attributes, and the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard, in adopting the structural link section and behavior section components.